Month: August 2012

5 Best-ish Moments: A Non-Committal List

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By Michelle Andreani

Following Mindi’s (and Charlie’s) example of listing their 5 Best Moments, I’ve come up with my own! I’m calling my list the 5 Best-ish Moments of My Life. Not that these don’t qualify as Best (no -ish) Moments, because they do! And I’m so very lucky to have them and snuggle with them on the hard days. But it’s just tough to commit sometimes, so this is my way of wiggling out of it. 😉

So, here we go!

The 5 Best-ish Moments of My Life 

December 19, 2004: College Graduation

College was not the most well-spent four years of my life. I mean, I met wonderful friends, took fun classes, and ate an entire Entenmann’s Chocolate Chip Loaf while watching Buffy in my dorm room. So, you know, not a total waste. But I also had zero idea what I wanted to do post-college, and this made caring about my classes a non-issue, and panic attacks a common thing. By senior year I knew-ish that I wanted to write (back then it was for TV), but it was way too late to switch things up (I was already feeling the crushing weight of my student loans). So, I chose a major in the subject where I’d wracked up the most credits, and got the go-ahead to graduate! Happy day!

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October 24, 2001: U2, Elevation Tour, Madison Square Garden

In the fall of 2001, my hometown was unlike anything I’d ever imagined. In the midst of all this, my cousin and I had tickets to see U2 in concert. Now I can’t remember if I was nervous about being in such a big crowd, or how extensively we were searched before we were allowed into MSG. But I do remember how it felt being in that arena, so symbolic of New York City, with people who were feeling what I was feeling. People who knew what it meant to be there, together, healing and singing and screaming and chanting “Let’s Go Yankees” at one point. And mostly I remember the moment when the band played “One,” and a list of names began scrolling. (I still get chills whenever I think about it.)


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Sometime in Seventh Grade: I Refused to Be a Shrew

I’m kind of bummed that I don’t remember the exact date this happened because it most certainly is one of those Big Moments. But in seventh grade, two of my closest friends turned into total harpies. I was considered a “nice girl” and they took this as permission to torture me daily because I probably wouldn’t argue back. IT WAS SO AWFUL. Being humiliated at the hands of two people who were supposed to be on my side. (See also: my trust issues.) But finally (finally, finally, finally), while we were working on group projects in class, I’d had enough. I stood up for myself. I told them not to bother talking to me again, got up from my desk, and left them, jaws dropped. I still remember the “way to go, Michelle” look on a classmate’s face as I did this, and the relief and pride that coursed through me. Nice girls aren’t pushovers, you see. 😉

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October 1-9, 2010: California (Love) Trip

This is sort of a cheat because California was not one but Very Many Best Moments, but, really, why choose? And while I’m chock full of neuroses like any good New Yorker, I’ve always felt like a teeny part of me belonged to California. Which is stupid! I’d never been to California! But I’ve always felt that certain people are drawn to certain places for inexplicable reasons, and California is one of my places. So, obviously, I jumped when I got the chance to go. And it was AMAZING. I ate fish tacos in Laguna Beach! I took surfing lessons in San Diego! I fell in love with Santa Monica, and the tiny cafe near our motel, and with all the newness of California, it still felt a little bit like coming home. (But NYC is cool with it!)

I’m at Sunnydale High!! Xander fell down those steps!

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Mid-2007: A Good Writing Moment

I did a lot of writing after college graduation, but I wasn’t sure if YA novel writing was something I should pursue as more than a hobby. So, I decided to take an online writing class through MediaBistro and let me tell you, it was TERRIFYING. There were so many talented writers and, along with them, so many great ideas for their books. Better than me and mine, for sure! Still, I was learning so much that each compliment and criticism felt like money in the bank. In that class my instructor and classmates made me believe a writing career could happen. For me! For real! I remember pulling a coat from my closet and reflecting on the class when I thought how this was an incredible overlap of something I loved to do and something I could do. How rarely that happens. And it’s a feeling I pull up on the hardest of writing days, one that’ll stick with me no matter where my career goes (or doesn’t go!).

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So, these are my moments. *hugs moments* You can tell me your (tentative) list now . . . I won’t hold you to it. 😉

The 5 Best Moments of Your Pathetic Excuse for a Life

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BY MINDI SCOTT

I used to watch LOST, and one of the episodes that has really stuck with me over the years is called “Hit List.” In this episode, Charlie makes a list of the “Five Best Moments of [His] Pathetic Excuse for a Life,” and every item he adds triggers a flashback.  (Of course.)

Shortly after it originally aired in 2007, I made up a list of my own. But recently, I was compelled to create a new list. As it turns out, only one of the memories from the original list made the cut.

And here is my new list!

The Five Best Moments of My Life, Revised

(Note:  Some of these have links to the original journal entries that I made right after they happened, including one that has never been public before!)

A
5. May 16, 2003: The day Dwayne (my husband) and I went to Discovery Cove in Florida. 

Flashback:  We swam with a dolphin (in a very supervised/photo-op way) and with (non-dangerous) sting rays! Such a relaxing and amazing experience.

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4. October 31, 2008: The night Dwayne and I watched the volcano.

Flashback: Dwayne and I were on Hawaii’s Big Island and took an impromptu trip to see the active volcano spewing lava into the air and the ocean at nighttime. We didn’t have any warm clothes in our rental car at the time, so I bought knee-high socks that said, “Grandma” all over them and wore them with my shorts.

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3. March 17, 2008: The night when Dwayne and I saw Nightmare of You for the first time.

Flashback:  Dwayne and I were obsessed with the band Ash. So obsessed that we flew to New York City for a rare show in the U.S.  to see them! Ash’s performance turned out to be really great. The whole trip was great, actually! But it was the opening band Nightmare of You, who really caught our attention and amazed us.

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2. Early November 2002: The day that I sat on an empty beach in Mexico, reading a book and getting horribly sunburned on my legs.

Flashback: Dwayne and I had been married for a year when we flew to Puerta Vallarta, Mexico for vacation with friends. The three of them went surfing, but I read on the beach all day long. I honestly don’t remember what I was reading. They were mysteries or romance novels that I’d picked up at the resort where we were staying. But for reasons that I still can’t explain, I felt so at peace and happy that day. (Little did I know that my legs would peel for a month after I got home!)

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1. January 6, 2009: The day a literary agent, Jim McCarthy, called me to offer representation.

Flashback: When I started writing, my goal was never to get published. That felt too big and too much out of my control. No, my goal was to get an agent to represent me and, hopefully, one day I’d get published as a result of that. After two manuscripts and well over 100 rejections, I finally got an agent. My first book deal came a few months later. There have been lots of great writing/publishing moments, but I’m honestly not sure that anything will ever top the time that a professional literary agent decided to take a chance on me.

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A few hours after Jim’s call, in the outfit I’d been wearing all day.

As you can see, my top two moments involve reading and writing. And, as I pointed out to Dwayne, only one of these took place in Washington State, where we live. This must mean something . . .

Now, if this were the olden days of the internet, I might tag people and guilt-trip them into completing this meme. (But probably not.) I’m not going to do that, but I would absolutely love to hear about your Top Five, Top Three, or Top Some Other Number Moments in your life.

And stay tuned later this week for Michelle’s list!

Reader Behaving Badly

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by Michelle Andreani

The other day, on Twitter, I had a short conversation with a lovely writer/reader. She’d confessed to skipping ahead in her book to see what was going to happen, and I assured her I’ve done it too. Because (NO REGRETS) I have! In fact, I’d just told Mindi earlier that week that I’d skimmed the last few pages of Jenny Han’s WE’LL ALWAYS HAVE SUMMER before I was halfway through the book.

I had to. 

I was so invested, SO NERVOUS, that I could not go on without knowing how it all ended. (And that’s a risk in and of itself, because if it didn’t turn out as I wanted, could I even continue on??) It’s not the first book I’ve skipped ahead on, and it certainly won’t be the last. It’s just that sometimes I need a guarantee that everything’s going to be okay. And that You-Know-Who and You-Know-Who will be 4-eva in love.

No denial here; it’s a Bad Reading Habit. Thankfully, it’s not one I give into too often. (And not to pat myself on the back, but I totally resisted skipping ahead this week while reading Kendare Blake’s GIRL OF NIGHTMARES — and I’m so glad I did.) (PS: Cas and Anna 4-eva.)

But, sadly, I have another Bad Reading Habit and it’s wayyyyyyy worse. Plus it’s such a weird one, you guys. It’s the long-lost cousin of the Did-Not-Finish, because while it resembles DNF, it is so much less . . . sensible.

See, I’ll be completely sucked into a novel, enjoying the world, loving the characters, and life is goooooood. But when things start looking sketchy, and the book’s climax approaches, I STOP READING. I put the book down! Even though I’m dying to know how the story turns out, I’m too nervous or concerned or scared to see these characters through their tough times. Their tough times become my tough times and it’s too much!

Only Joey Tribbiani can possibly understand!

 

The good news is that, unlike the DNF, I do go back into that world. I pick up the book, remove the CVS receipt I’ve been using as a bookmark, and make sure the characters make it through to the other end. I don’t give up completely; I just needed the break.

So, yep, I sometimes behave badly while I’m reading. And I wonder if authors would find that obnoxious; that I read their last lines too early, or step away from their book to regroup. But it’s only because I’m so in love with the author’s story, their characters, and how it all turns out. I want these people they’ve created to be happy. And that’s gotta be a little flattering, right? 🙂

Joey and I can’t be the only ones . . . Tell me your Bad Reading Habits! Solidarity!

All About Elise Allen and POPULAZZI

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BY MINDI SCOTT

Elise Allen’s Populazzi came out last week, so she stopped by to answer a few Very Important Questions for me. Hooray!

(FYI: I’m noticing that the more of these interviews I get back, the more I see Beatles coming up as the response for the last question. Very interesting!)

At age eight, what did you want to be when you grew up? And at age eighteen? And while you’re at it, what about at age twenty-eight?

Elise Allen: At age 8 I wanted to be a veterinarian… despite the fact that I can’t bear the site of blood and would doubtless pass out if I had to give an animal a shot. Clearly, this career trajectory wouldn’t last.

At age 18 I wanted to be a star of stage and screen… despite the fact that I freeze on camera, and can’t get out of my own head enough to dive into a character on stage. Small problems. The world would undoubtedly love me anyway.

By age 28, I’d found the career I love. I was getting paid to write television, worked in both prime time sitcoms and kids’ shows, and knew there was nothing in the world I’d rather do for a living than write.

Which Breakfast-Club-style label would have best fit your teenage self?
EA: Theatre Geek for sure! My life ebbed and flowed to the rhythms of whatever plays we were doing, or between plays, whatever we were doing in theatre class. (You can tell I’m still a geek about it because I can’t help spelling the word with the “re” at the end.)

Without giving away too much from your newest book, which character or scene from it are you the most pleased to have created, and why?
EA: Robert Schwarner! I love him, and I love him most of all because he was completely unexpected. I’m a plotter, and I had a full outline for Populazzi before I started writing, in which Robert Schwarner did not appear. He appeared briefly in the first draft, a Happy Hopeless in a Beastslayer cloak (Happy Hopeless = lowest rung of the popularity tower, so out of sync with what’s cool that they don’t even realize there is a popularity tower, nor are they aware of their lowly spot on it). Then draft after draft he grew to this bizarrely wise oracle who’s actually far more together than anyone else around him.

Which are your favorite movies to watch again and again?
EA: PeeWee’s Big Adventure, The Muppet Movie (the original), Casablanca, Johnny Dangerously. Not sure Casablanca has ever been listed in that particular company, but there ya go.

And, now, the most important question of all: Beatles or Elvis? Please support your answer. 😉
EA: BEATLES!!! I love me some Elvis, but he didn’t really evolve the way the Beatles did. You more or less get what you get with Elvis, while with the Beatles you can enjoy everything from the joyful simplicity of All My Lovin’ to the lyrical beauty of In My Life to the more complex lyrics and music of Revolution or the stuff on Sgt. Pepper.

My own coolest Beatles (sorta Beatles) moment? I went to see Billy Joel’s Last Play at Shea concert… and he brought out Paul McCartney to play Let It Be. Oh. My. God. Even Billy Joel was geeking out.

Now I think I have to go look up tickets for the Beatles Cirque du Soleil show in Vegas. I’ve been dying to see it and now I’m newly motivated!

Thanks for having me on the blog, Mindi!

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About the book:

WHAT WOULD YOU DO if you had the chance to erase your past and reinvent yourself as the person you’ve always wanted to be? Would you grab it? Would you stick with it, no matter what the consequences?

Cara Leonard always wished she could be one of those girls: confident, self-possessed, and never at a loss for the perfect thing to say. One of the Populazzi.

It always seemed impossible… but now could be her chance.

When Cara moves to a new school just before junior year, her best friend urges her to seize the opportunity and change her life… with the help of The Ladder. Its rungs are relationships, and if Cara transforms herself into the perfect girlfriend for guys higher and higher on the Popularity Tower, she can reach the ultimate goal: Supreme Populazzi, the most popular girl in school.

The Ladder seems like a lighthearted social experiment — a straight climb up — but it quickly becomes gnarled and twisted. And when everything goes wrong, only the most audacious act Cara can think of has a chance of setting things even a little bit right.

About the author: 

After starting her career in television, ELISE ALLEN has emerged as a vibrant new voice in teen fiction. She is the co-author of Hilary Duff’s New York Times Bestseller Elixir, as well as its sequels, Devoted and True. She received an Emmy nomination for her work on the PBS show Dinosaur Train, and fulfilled a lifelong dream when she wrote for the Muppets. She lives in Los Angeles, where she indulges her inexplicable desire to run marathons. Visit her at http://www.eliseallen.com, or on Twitter @EliseLAllen.

All about Jennifer Hubbard and TRY NOT TO BREATHE

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BY MINDI SCOTT

Jennifer Hubbard and I were in the Tenners debut YA novelist group in 2010, and we both had novels published that year about boys who lived by the river! Now, Jennifer has a second novel out, called Try Not to Breathe.  She’s stopped by today to answer just a few questions for me.

At age eight, what did you want to be when you grew up? And at age eighteen? And while you’re at it, what about at age twenty-eight?

Jennifer Hubbard: At eight, maybe a teacher, though I was also considering “writer.” At eighteen, a scientist and a writer. At twenty-eight, the same. I suppose I’m unusual in that I became exactly what I set out to be at age eighteen.

Which Breakfast-Club-style label would have best fit your teenage self?

JH: Apparently the Breakfast Club made a much bigger impact on the rest of the world than it did on me, but I guess the one who is closest to my teenage self would be the character Anthony Michael Hall played.

Without giving away too much from your newest book, which character or scene from it are you the most pleased to have created, and why?

JH: There’s a scene in Try Not to Breathe where Ryan, the main character, confronts someone he has been afraid to confront for months. He has built this meeting up in his mind, and yet I knew the character he’s confronting would have a very different take on what had happened between them. I worked hard to make that scene significant, yet realistic.

Which are your favorite movies to watch again and again?

JH: It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World. Crimes and Misdemeanors. Take the Money and Run. This is Spinal Tap. Dr. Strangelove.

And, now, the most important question of all: Beatles or Elvis? Please support your answer. 😉

JH: I listen to more Beatles music. The breadth of their material, and the originality of their later songs, is impressive.

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Bio: Jennifer R. Hubbard (www.jenniferhubbard.com) is the author of the young-adult novels Try Not to Breathe, about a boy’s recovery from a suicide attempt, and The Secret Year, about a secret relationship and its aftermath.

Win an ARC of Mindi’s LIVE THROUGH THIS + Cuteness + a Mystery Gift!

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by Michelle Andreani
LTT contest

“We want to live with you!” says Plush Giraffe.

Hi, there! You’ve certainly visited on a great day because not only did I just get a haircut, but Mindi’s giving things away! And some very cool things at that. The very coolest of which is an ARC of her upcoming release LIVE THROUGH THIS. (I was lucky enough to read an early draft and I loved loved LOVED it so much. And you will, too!) Here’s a little more about LTT:

Sometimes hiding the truth requires more than a lie . . .

From the outside, Coley Sterling’s life seems pretty normal . . . whatever that means. It’s not perfect—her best friend is seriously mad at her and her dance team captains keep giving her a hard time—but Coley’s adorable, sweet crush Reece helps distract her from the annoying drama. Plus, she has a great family to fall back on—with a stepdad and mom who would stop at nothing to keep her and her siblings happy and safe.

But Coley has a lot of secrets. She won’t admit—not even to herself—that her almost-perfect life is her own carefully-crafted façade. That for years she’s been burying the shame and guilt over a relationship that crossed the line. Now, Coley and Reece are getting closer, and as Coley has the chance at her first real boyfriend, a decade’s worth of lies are on the verge of unraveling.

Mindi Scott offers an absorbing, layered glimpse into the life of an everygirl living a nightmare that no one would suspect in this unforgettable powerhouse of a novel.

Praise For Live Through This . . .

“Live Through This is by turns harrowing, sad, funny, and romantic. I couldn’t put it down.” -Stephanie Perkins, author of Anna and the French Kiss

“Intensely emotional and beautifully crafted, I savored every word.” –Amanda Grace, author of In Too Deep

“An honest and realistic portrayal of what it is to live with secrets and shame.” –Jo Knowles, author of Lessons From a Dead Girl

*     *     *     *     *     *     *    *     *    *     *     *     *     *    *     *     *     *     *     *     *     *     *

Such well-deserved praise! Along with the ARC, Mindi is also giving away the most adorable stuffed giraffe (which will make total sense once you read your arc, but until then, doesn’t it look so snuggable?), and *cues dramatic music* a GIFT. OF. MYSTERY! Honestly. Who can resist a mystery gift??

Let’s review! One enviable winner will get three awesome (and mysteriousssss) prizes! So, if you want the haul for yourself, check out the details, including all the ways you can enter, in the Google form below.

Crossing my fingers for you! GOOD LUCK! 😀